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Planetans—oceanic planets

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Abstract

The development of principles, systems, and instruments enable the detection of exoplanets with 6–8 Earth masses or less. The launches of specialized satellites, such as CoRoT (2006) and Kepler (2009), into orbits around the Earth have enabled the discovery of new exoplanetary systems. These missions are searching for relatively low-mass planets by observing their transits over the disks of their parent stars. At the same time, supporting studies of exoplanets using ground-based facilities (that measure Keplerian components of radial velocities) are in progress. The properties of at least two objects discovered by different methods, Kepler-22 and GJ 1214b, suggested that there was another class of celestial bodies among the known types of extrasolar planets: planetans, or oceanic planets. The structure of Kepler-22 and GJ 1214b suggest that they can be these oceanic planets. In this paper, we consider to what extent this statement is valid. The consideration of exoplanet Gl 581g as an oceanic planet is more feasible. Some specific features of the physical nature of these unusual planets are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    L. V. Ksanfomality

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  1. L. V. Ksanfomality
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Original Russian Text © L.V. Ksanfomality, 2014, published in Astronomicheskii Vestnik, 2014, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 81–91.

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Ksanfomality, L.V. Planetans—oceanic planets. Sol Syst Res 48, 79–89 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0038094614010055

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